IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/halshs-03760324.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Infinite population utilitarian criteria

Author

Listed:
  • Geir B Asheim

    (UiO - University of Oslo)

  • Kohei Kamaga

    (Sophia University [Tokyo])

  • Stéphane Zuber

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

We examine utilitarian criteria for evaluating profiles of wellbeing among infinitely many individuals. Motivated by the non-existence of a natural 1-to-1 correspondence between people when alternatives have different population structures, with a different number of people in each generation, we impose equal treatment in the form of Strong Anonymity. We show how a novel criterion, Strongly Anonymous Utilitarianism, can be characterized by combining Strong Anonymity with other regularity axioms (Monotonicity, Finite Completeness, and continuity axioms) as well as axioms of equity, sensitivity, separability, and population ethics. We relate it to other strongly anonymous utilitarian criteria and demonstrate its applicability by showing how it leads to an efficient and sustainable stream in the Ramsey model.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Geir B Asheim & Kohei Kamaga & Stéphane Zuber, 2022. "Infinite population utilitarian criteria," Working Papers halshs-03760324, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03760324
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03760324
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03760324/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pivato, Marcus, 2022. "A characterization of Cesàro average utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    2. Asheim, Geir B. & Kamaga, Kohei & Zuber, Stéphane, 2022. "Maximal sensitivity under Strong Anonymity," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    utilitarianism; intergenerational equity; population ethics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03760324. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.